Notts man kept stun-gun because “he normally has a lot of people after him”

Police discovered the device, which was disguised as a police torch, in the boot of Keeran Rolls' car after they were called to a domestic assault complaint at an address in Edwalton, on June 2 2019.

When officers asked him about it, Rolls said: "Oh, I know what you mean. I bought that from Turkey. It doesn't even work."

But Rolls' ex-partner said he kept it in the "car boot for protection because he normally has a lot of people after him," prosecutor Stuart Pattinson told Nottingham Crown Court.

Rolls later told police he bought it in a car boot sale.

But when the device was inspected, officers found it was capable of discharging 7,500 volts.

The court heard he was jailed last year for breaching a suspended sentence, imposed for domestic assault and driving matters.

Claire Moran, mitigating, said Rolls had made "exceptional progress" since being released from his last prison sentence, and he was due to re-start work as a car-sprayer on Monday.

She said his offender manager thinks that custody would be counter-productive.

Rolls, 26, of Sharphill Road, Edwalton, pleaded guilty to possessing a prohibited weapon, when he appeared at Nottingham Crown Court, on Thursday.

Judge Timothy Spencer QC told him: "This is a fearsome weapon. You knew perfectly well that charged-up this was a Taser which can do serious damage to people.

"You had absolutely no business having it."

He said that Rolls would have received eight months after a trial and had already served 32 weeks in prison for the "idiocy of breaching a suspended sentence within days of it being imposed."

But he praised Rolls for his hard work in his new job, and sentenced him to eight months, suspended for two years.

"You had better not breach this one, Keeran Rolls,” he said. “Get on with your work and sort your act out."